The Place for Spirituality in Recovery by Mike Lewis, M.A.

Spirituality is the calling to look more deeply into our lives – into ourselves, our relationships, our communities, and our relationships with the ecological and universal realms. As the Dalai Lama has said many times, “All beings want happiness and freedom from suffering.” We all want to love, be loved, feel peace, be creative, feel connected, and feel fulfilled with our lives. Treading the labyrinth of humanity’s misguided attempts toward achieving these deeper desires leads us down disastrous roads, dead ends, and into pits of confusion and despair. For a while, tasty foods, expensive material items, and prideful accomplishments can trigger the pleasurable neurotransmitters in our brains. Working much like a drug or alcohol, the external stimuli lose their power and we develop dependence and tolerance, needing more and more to get our happiness high. Finally, we are left strung out and unhappier than we were in the beginning. On the path of recovery, we bring spirituality into our lives to help us reconnect in a more sustainable and healthy way – a way that fills our core with contented pleasure and without as much dependence on things outside of ourselves. A quiet walk, taking time to chop the vegetables with precision, prayer, meditation, snuggling with our pets, gazing into the eyes of our loves ones, singing, painting, self-help workshops, religion, planting vegetables, reading, eating slowly and tasting every bite, fellowship, listening to soothing music, and donating time and resources for another’s benefit – these are common examples of how healthy people let go of their frantic pursuits of the insatiable highs and slow down to appreciate this fragile, fleeting, yet incredibly wonderful human life. Take a moment for spiritualty today. Breathe and appreciate this body, this life. Smell the roses – they are all around us if we can learn to see them.